Zlatan Ibrahimovic has accused Chelsea's players of being "babies" after the Paris St Germain striker was sent off at Stamford Bridge on Wednesday night.
PSG advanced to the Champions League quarter-finals at Chelsea's expense despite Ibrahimovic being shown a straight red card after 31 minutes, dismissed for a challenge on Oscar which was more clumsy than malicious as he attempted to pull out of the 50-50 tackle.
Dutch referee Bjorn Kuipers was quick to make his decision, although he was surrounded by nine Chelsea players as he pulled the card out of his top pocket.
Ibrahimovic said: “I don’t know if I have to get angry or start to laugh. For me when I saw the red card I was like ‘the guy doesn’t know what he’s doing’.
“That is not the worst. The worst is when I got the red card all the Chelsea players come around. It felt like I had a lot of babies around me.”
The Sweden striker also suggested Oscar feigned injury.
“I pulled out (of the tackle), because I saw him come in the tackle,” Ibrahimovic said.
“I don’t know if he was acting afterwards. Doesn’t matter. We won the game, we went through and let’s see what happens.”
The 33-year-old lauded the performance of his team-mates, who defied the numerical advantage to twice come from behind and progress on away goals courtesy of a 2-2 draw — 3-3 on aggregate.
“It was an amazing performance because we were playing with one less (player),” he added.
“They played with big hearts. It’s not easy to play with 10 guys, especially against a team like Chelsea. We showed quality and big heart.”
PSG coach Laurent Blanc suggested an appeal over Ibrahimovic's dismissal was likely.
“I hope Ibra can be with us in the quarter-finals,” Blanc said. “He’ll certainly want to play a good match in the quarter-finals because he has a feeling that he did something that punished the team and could have punished them terminally.
“I think he’s going to play very well in the quarter-finals.”
Blanc defended PSG’s combative approach. “Matches at the highest level are full of pressure and tension,” he said. “Things do go on on both sides. Both sides put pressure on the opposition, and Chelsea did their fair share of that.
“It had happened even before the match with their manager, exerting pressure on the referee. That’s part of the mind games, and all fair and good.
“But if you take out these elements of unsporting behaviour, I think my team were better than Chelsea in every area of the pitch. PSG’s qualification is deserved. We tried to play more football than Chelsea and created more dangerous chances.”
A dejected Jose Mourinho said his Chelsea team didn't deserve to go through.
“When a team cannot defend two corners and concedes two goals, a team doesn’t deserve to win.
“When a team cannot cope with the pressure of being one player more and playing at home... we couldn’t cope with that pressure. We deserved to be punished with this draw, defeat.
"We have the Premier League to win and we are in a good situation. There's no time to cry. If we win the Premier League and Capital One Cup, this season is still a fantastic season for us."
